19 week belly shot

Yes indeed this picture is of my belly at 19 weeks. Small wonder I feel like I've been pregnant for years.

Since my third pregnancy, my belly has gotten huge very quickly. I think it's because my stomach muscles are shot from two C-section deliveries and one C-section uterine surgery to remove a fibroid. And because after six go-rounds, my uterus knows the drill.

When I'm pregnant, friends are suspicious at about 6 weeks. People flat-out congratulate me at 8 weeks without even asking if I'm pregnant.

I don't end up any bigger than other women at the end of the pregnancy. I just get huge much faster which adds significantly to the discomfort because it starts earlier. Good times indeed.

Grumpy

I’m grumpy for no good reason. Even as I think of my reasons, I think of reasons why my reasons are bullshit. Like my clothes don’t fit and I’m uncomfortable unless I’m wearing sweatpants. But hello, how lucky am I to be pregnant at all? How many people would trade places with me so they could be uncomfortable in stupid-ass maternity pants? Who wouldn’t put on a pair of panel pants in return for feeling a baby kicking in the belly?

Side note: I think the panel actually wasn’t such a bad idea after all especially after dealing with “the tourniquet” aka the band that goes below the belly, cutting off all circulation espcially after 12 p.m.

Here’s the thing that's getting me down or at least it's one of the things. I have been pregnant since August. Of last year. I mean August of 2005. Seriously I got pregnant with LC in August of 2005 and was pregnant until 22 ½ weeks, December 30th 2005.

Then I had three months off from being pregnant but I was pretty busy grieving my dead baby and recovering from a hideous infection. I missed being pregnant because my time with the belly was cut so tragically short.

By April 2006, I was pregnant again, my fifth first trimester. Ugh, the nausea, the exhaustion, the heartburn, the burping only to have that end hideously at 11 weeks on June 30th, 2006. Well it didn’t really end until 5 days later.

The next few months were almost as miserable as after LC. I was coping with such trauma after LC that in some ways I rose to the occasion. After delivering tiny baby boy into my hand in July 2006, I was bitter and angry; that is when I wasn’t smoking weed to take the edge off a near-suicidal rage and depression.

Let’s see after that fun summer I got pregnant again in I guess September was it? Yet another first trimester, my sixth and LAST!!) full of round-the-clock nausea and sheer exhaustion. Oh and the terror, how could I forget that? Oh and two little people to care for while I wanted to crawl into a hole and stay there until this is over. Good times.

I’ve been pregnant for a year and a half (with time off for deadbaby expulsion and a start on the mourning) and I’m just halfway to an actual live baby. That’s 53 weeks of being pregnant and no baby unless you count the two in my kitchen cabinet.

By the time this baby is due, I will have been pregnant for 72 weeks. That’s a lot of work for one baby. Holy hormonal rollercoaster. I rarely attribute my foul mood to hormones but I think maybe I should start.

On a lighter note… is transition possible here… the amnio results came back fine. I was SO over the waiting-for-results thing after my weekend of hell, followed graciously by a round of the stomach flu, that I just didn’t have it in me to worry much about the actual amnio results.

Live baby duty calls. This miserable post is the reason that I haven’t been posting. I’m depressed. But I feel like I should be happy.

Oh and yeah no sex this whole pregnancy. Not even personal attitude adjustments are allowed. Maybe I should start eating more chocolate; it's rumored to contain a chemical produced in the brain during orgasm. But the thought of all that fat going straight to my 53-weeks-pregnant ass is just depressing.

Aren't you glad you read this?

No news is good news

Nothing exciting or really worrisome happening here. Turns out I didn’t have food poisoning. It was the stomach flu (and a pretty mild case at that, fortunately). This became clear to me when my daughter barfed all over the place the next day. Now Rocket Man is laid out with it. Just my dad and son left to start puking.

My amnio results are due in soon but I really have hardly given them a second thought. I was so completely worn out by all of that stress (and then the barfing)that I just don’t have the stamina to go there again. And I do believe that the results will be fine. Hopefully I won’t start thinking about them now that I’ve written that.

I will see fancy doc on Thursday and we’ll see how my cervix is holding up. The contractions have slowed since I reduced my activity level although I have noticed that I have contractions now when I am utterly motionless. A disturbing new development but so far I’ve only had a few of these each day.

I’ll also check in with fancy about the elevated hCG that may or may not be an indicator of placental issues.

Now the challenge is to keep the baby in there. My benchmarks will be 24, 28, 32, 34 weeks. 22 ½ is when we lost LC so it will be nice to see that one go by.

Soon, at 22 weeks I believe, we’ll start doing a cervical mucus swab that somehow assesses the likelihood of pre-term labor. Now that my dad is here, I am taking it easier and that has reduced my stress about over-doing it.

So things are looking pretty good. Naturally that in itself gives me pause. But I am actually enjoying feeling the little darling move around and I confess I am an egregious offender when it comes to belly rubbing. I try not to do it in public. I has taken me a year to have my big ol’ belly back and I intend to enjoy it. At least a little.

In other news, it looks like we are back on with the project of making dosmamas a baby. I haven’t posted about this much and I am actually not going to now either. I’m glad it’s back on, although I wish it had worked out the way they wanted with their son’s donor.

Eww, Evil Shadow Pregnancy must have had her baby yesterday. She was scheduled for a c-section. I have been thinking more about her on her due date than about my no-longer-due date, which was January 18th. Go figure.

unbelievable

Went out for much-needed dinner, celebration, and unwinding last night and i seem to have gotten food poisoning fron a scallop. shoulda got the lobster instead. extra sucks because i've have had such a hard time enjoying food of late. nausea, smell sensitivty, and abject terror have killed my appetite.

finally got excited about a meal and then i'm puking up bile.

unfuckingbelievable.

Finally

Jesus H. Christ at last. Five hours after the promised phone call, the genetic counselor called with good news. Everything looks fine. There are no extra chromosomes, no Downs Syndrome, no Turners, no trisomy. Thank God. I had a relatively good cry and now am relieved and EXHAUSTED.

I had started to think that if the baby had Downs, I would want to keep her. I've been feeling her move for about a week now and am getting quite attached. Nearly thirteen months after saying goodbye to LC, I am feeling a baby move again. It's been a long wait, I can't imagine choosing to give that up. Thank God I won't be faced with that decision.

Next week we'll get the full amnio results. There shouldn't be any new information. I'm not even sure how the amnio results will differ from the ones we just got (FISH results). I know that the amnio looks at all the chromosomes in their entirety so we'll see if there is a structural problem with a chromosome. My plan is to not worry about these results much at all. We should hear by Wednesday or so the genetic counselor says. I won't hold my breath.

Thanks for your support. It does help to know that I'm not going through this alone.

Deep breathhhhhhhh.

STILL waiting

I left GC a message at 1:00. Still no word from her. I'm really pissed that she said she would definitely call me at 11 and has not done so. And I am getting worked up again, imagining what might be the cause of the delay. This fucking sucks.

I wish I could get the hell out of my house or lose myself in a movie. Can't watch a movie because my son is here.

This whole process has been so much more awful than it needed to be, mostly thanks to the cluelessness of the GC. She knows that I am a wreck. She knows some of my history. That's why she promised to call me at 11 either way. This is really unfucking believable.

Still waiting

11 am came and went. Last night, the GC said she would call the lab for the results at 11 am and call me no matter what. It's after 12. She's killin' me.

the gc finally called

apparently the test needed to be run again because they didn't have enough cells in the fluid. so they started another batch and the results should be in tomorrow. the gc said she will call us at 11 am.

what a wild ride. hysteria is exhausting.

6 pm came and went

First she said that the results may be ready by 10 am today and I should call at 1 if I haven’t heard from her. Then she said I would certainly hear the results by 6 pm. Now I am getting pissed. I am guessing I’m about to hear some bullshit about why I have to wait until Monday. I don’t want to wait until fucking Monday.

I know it could’ve been much worse and many people have to wait longer but it’s a matter of expectations here. If I had known I’d have to wait until Monday I wouldn’t have started to lose it at 10 am this morning. I don’t have the stamina for it. I would’ve waited until Sunday night.

The delay is really freaking me out. I am imagining a variety of things, mostly that the results were bad and are being double-checked or that the results were SO bad and funky they need to be re-processed or whatever. Maybe there was some sort of problem unrelated to the genetic health of our baby and we’ll just be unlucky that we have to wait after being ASSURED that we’d know by now.

The thing that is fucking with me the most right now is that I am remembering being in the hospital, 22 ½ weeks pregnant with a hideous and mysterious fever. After my first night in the hospital, fancy doc came to tell us that they suspected that the infection might be in my amniotic fluid and if it was then I would have to deliver the baby. They were going to do an amnio and then culture the fluid.

We waited all day to find out if our baby was going to die because it was too early for her to be born. I laid in bed, feeling her frolicking in my maybe toxic belly, and watched to see whose shoes were going to appear under the curtain as the door opened. I think we waited 6 or 7 or maybe 8 hours. In AGONY. Eventually my ex-doctor walked in and all I needed to see was the look on her face. My amniotic fluid was infected with what they thought was e. coli and our perfectly healthy baby was going to have to be delivered so I didn’t die from the infection. It couldn’t be treated with her still in there.

Adding to the irony was that I would be delivering her vaginally even though I normally give birth via c-section because of a uterine surgery I had years ago. Yeah so I was going to have the vaginal delivery I had always longed for but I would have to watch my baby die. Good times.

As I’ve waited all day for the results that I was supposed to get by now, I am wondering what they found. I am imagining that there is something so funky in my amniotic fluid that they are retesting it or calling the Center for Disease Control (just kidding about that second part).

I’m afraid I am going to get information that catches me completely off-guard. So I try to anticipate all possible disastrous outcomes so I am less shocked when one comes to pass. It’s a byproduct of being a hyper-vigilant child which came from living in an unsafe home. This catastrophizing as a means of self-defense and self-preservation doesn’t actually work but try telling that to the very core of my being.

Seriously though this delay is fucking me up. It is giving me the idea that something has gone wrong. I left a message, at 6:20 pm, on the genetic counselor’s cell phone and am hoping to hear back from her, if not with results then with an explanation for the delay.

ARGH.

She said I would hear results by 6 pm

She said i will hear the results by 6 pm. As 6 pm approaches, I am starting to imagine there has been some kind of screw-up and we are going to have to agonize all weekend. I will freak if she says that. I am so stressed right now I am about at a breaking point. This pregnancy has been hardly anything besides constant fucking worry and terror. I am getting so goddamn sick of it especially when it is so acute like right now. I've been waiting for my phone to ring every second of this day since 10 am. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I wish I could just scream my brains out or zone out in front of the TV. But I am waiting for these fucking results and wait for a stupid-ass chicken pot pie to heat up. It said 20 minutes at 350. I knew better than that but it's been 40 minuters and my kids are 30 minutes past hungry. Their dad is just leaving the city on a Friday no less and they don't want poppop to do anything for them.

18 minutes until 6 pm. Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.

Still waiting

I've been waiting all day, freaking out since about 10 am. Fear set in this morning and it has a firm grip on my insides. I can't help but imagine various nightmarish scenarios. I was supposed to hear by 1 so I figured that the delay might be because the lab was double-checking my freakishly funky results or because the genetic counselor was saving the call until she had enough time to deliver the bad news.

She finally called back at 2;30 and said the results just aren't in yet. She assured me I would hear something by 6 pm. Now I figure the double-checking at the lab might be happening.

In the absence of news, I tend to freak out, as if you couldn't tell that about me. I'm wigging right now. It's nearly 5 pm. I'm imagining she'll say it's Turner Syndrome or some other rally funky news but not as bad as Downs. The phone keeps ringing but it keeps not being her. I'm terrified of hearing her voice at this point.

So far, so good, still

So it's been 32 hours and no gushes of fluid and no fever. I've been laying super-low mostly because I am afraid to do very much and because I am entertaining the idea that being sedentary might help. I am feeling optimistic (what, me?, have I lost my mind?) that everything is going to be okay for now.

I'm not too worried about the results, due in by 1 tomorrow, because there have been no signs of Downs and the combined screening results were so good. Of course, I wonder if I should worry about not worrying? Am I about to be blindsided in a most horrendous way? Let's hope not.

1 more sleep until we get FISH results.

So far, so good

I’ve been on the couch for 4 hours since I got home from the amnio and so far, no disasters. The technician raved about how beautifully the procedure went. The genetic counselor just about convinced us that the combined screening results (1 in 3681) are much more reliable than the AFP/triple screen (1 in 28). So I am feeling cautiously optimistic especially since there have been no indicators of Downs in any of the u/s’s esp the Level II.

Eventually I will have to pee and I’ll be forced off the couch. After 24 hours I should be in the clear with regards to breaking of membranes and infection. Then we’ll get FISH results by Friday pm.

I daresay the worst is…. Never mind, I’m not going to put that in print. Everything is okay for now.

Apparently all of the panic about the elevated hCG is no big deal and it is more often than not an indicator of absolutely nothing. I about wigged out this morning and nearly convinced myself that my spooky boy son was going to be right about our baby coming out today. The day is not over yet but if i don't stand up, our baby can't come out.

Fancy doc apparently is not worried about the elevated hCG but he sent word that we shouldn’t worry about him not being worried. I’ll see him next week for the two-week cervix and cerclage check.

Thanks for all of the moral support. I’ll keep you all posted.

Baby Drama Tuesday (unscheduled)

Just after reading about Bri and Jennifer’s good baby news, I thought “this is a good day for baby news.” I’m still waiting on good news from infertilepediatrican but so far the baby scares have turned out to be nothing.

Then my phone rings. It’s fancy doc’s trusty assistant and she has THAT TONE in her voice. She says, “why would things go smoothly?” and I knew. The triple screen/AFP results were due in today. I’ve been thinking about them and how it would be nice to get a good result. I was actually on the other line with fancy doc’s office, inquiring about those very results, when trusty assistant called.

I have a positive (bad) AFP result, she said, and I should talk to the genetics counselor about an amnio ASAP. The results indicate a 1 in 28 chance of Down’s. That’s down from, let’s see, 1 in 3,681 from the combined screening results.

I spent the next several hours on the phone and this is what I’ve learned and concluded.

** I will be having an amnio tomorrow at 1:00. Mr. AFP isn’t available so I’ll be having it with Dr. Dead Baby.

Dr. Dead Baby is the doctor whose face I saw back in June when I was having my second “surprise, your-baby-is-dead ultrasound.” After the “better machine” was fired up for a closer look at our motionless baby I had my eyes closed. Nobody was saying anything so I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the look on this doctor’s face. I’ll never forget that look on his face. It told me that my baby was dead, at 11 weeks. My third dead baby in my life; my second dead baby in six months, to the day, 30 minutes shy of to the hour.

On a positive note, fancy doc has assured me that Dr. Dead Baby is tremendously competent and that I should have him do my amnio ASAP, tomorrow. Otherwise I'd have to wait until Monday. This way I will have FISH results by Friday.

** By Friday I will know (I just learned this from Jennifer’s blog) about chromosomes 13, 18, 21, X and Y. We’ll know for sure if the baby has Downs Syndrome by Friday.

** Apparently the triple screen is a state-mandated crappy test that doesn’t do a very good job of testing for Down’s. It measures three things: AFP, HCG, and UE3.

** My AFP, which is an indicator of spina bifida, is fine. She said spina bifida is not a concern but I just read that low AFP is also an indicator of Downs. My AFP is 1.03 which is normal I believe. My UE3 is a little low at .83.

** My HCG is 3.82, which is high. The state considers it high at 2.5. My doctor considers it high at 3.0. High HCG is correlated with Downs but is more often correlated with a problem with the placenta. The problem could take the form of placenta previa, preeclampsia, or pre-term labor. My doctor is more concerned about those things than about Downs.

** The combined screening test (dried blood and NT u/s) is a much better screen for Downs. That score (1 in 3681) and my good Level II u/s are strong indicators of no Downs.

** So even though the high HCG is considered by the state to indicate a 1 in 28 chance of Downs, my genetic counselor said those results aren’t nearly as reliable as my combined screening and Level II u/s results.

** But I’m going to do an amnio anyway. Mainly for 2 reasons: one is so I can have some peace of mind regarding the baby’s chromosomal health and 2) the new research that I read about is true. The risk of pregnancy loss from an amnio is 1 in 1600. A 10-year study has just been completed and the risk is much lower than it used to be. 1 in 300 is the risk according to research that was done 10 years ago and has been fact until recently. So I feel much better about my chances, having heard that this research is now accepted as fact by fancy docs and his esteemed partners.

I partly can’t even believe that this is happening right now and I’m partly not surprised by anything anymore. After an afternoon spent in coping and information gathering mode, I am feeling a shocked about the whole thing. There’s the funky results for starters, the amnio itself, the worrying afterwards about miscarriage and infection, the waiting for the results, and then the concerns about what the elevated HCG really might mean, e.g. serious placental problems.

Then there is my feeling of disbelief that there are more potential problems to be worried about and dealt with. It’s feeling pretty surreal right now.

UPDATE** I'm extra freaked out now because my son came home from school and announced, "Mama our baby is coming out tomorrow." This from the kid who was in the ER two nights in a row after we lost our last baby because he had excruciating stomach pains. We never figured out what was wrong except we later realized that the pain started the day of the bad ultrasound. He knew about this current pregnancy before we told him. So it freaks me out that he made this announcement. Our baby had better not be coming out tomorrow.

Time for a new ticker and for my dad to arrive

I guess it’s time for a new ticker. What’s the next milestone that feels manageable? 24 weeks, I think. The very cusp of viability. I’ll have to get to work on that soon.

For now, I am enjoying my last moments of peace and quiet before…GET THIS: Rocket Man and my son are on their way to the airport to pickup my dad who is coming TODAY to stay with us until JUNE!!! No shit, I swear to god. My father who is still married to my can’t-even-think-of-a-one-word-descriptor mother is coming today to help us out until the baby is born. I’m sure he’ll stay for a few weeks afterwards also. So 5 ½ months??!!

I can hardly believe it. It’s quite a concept to wrap one’s feeble brain around. Let me start by saying this: I get along with my dad much better than I have ever gotten along with my mother. He is tremendously helpful and capable and the kids like him and even though we’ll all be sick of him after a week, he is going to be a huge help.

He cooks, cleans, does laundry, drives the carpool, spins the kids around and lets them ride him like a pony, bathes and puts the kids to bed, gets them up in the morning so we can sleep in on occasion, babysits for days on end, and strangely seems to love doing it. He loves his grandkids and relishes any opportunity to spend time with them. Unlike my mother, he can carry on a conversation.

He cancelled his trip to Antartica so he could help us get this baby here. Last year when I went on modified bed rest with LC, he cancelled a trip to Australia.

Why is he coming you might ask? We have been planning on him coming at the end of February, at 24 weeks, to help us make it through the rest of the pregnancy. We don’t know if I’ll end up on bedrest; it just depends on how my cervix is looking every two weeks.

Since Christmas Day, I have been having lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions. I started them early with my other pregnancies but I am having them much more frequently this time around. And I have 25% less cervix and there is a bootlace holding it together. The dangers that lurking now are infection from the stitch and pre-term labor.


With LC, my cervix was dangerously short at 19 weeks (SURPRISE) and a rescue cerclage was put in place to save the pregnancy (didn’t work). I got a deadly infection in my amniotic fluid, from the stitch and the pregnancy had to be cut short at 22 weeks to save my life. In addition to the danger of infection, there is also the possibility of pre-term labor. Just because a bootlace is holding my cervix together doesn’t mean that I won’t go into pre-term labor. My cervix could funnel down to the stitch, the stitch could slip, my water could break…. All really bad.


Anyway, I am worried about the contractions, even though I know there aren’t labor contractions. At 18 ½ weeks, I’ve got a long way to go. I don’t want to take any chances. I just want to get through this and then NEVER EVER get pregnant again.

Since the contractions increase dramatically with my activity level, we decided to have my dad come early. Fancy doc thinks it’s a good idea although he isn’t phased by the contractions. He just thinks that since my cervix looks good that the contractions aren’t causing any damage to the stitch or pressure on the cervix. I don’t want to get to the point where the stitch is damaged so I am going on light duty.

So for the next five or so months, my dad will be living with us in our not-that-big house where there are few places to hide from anybody. I am going to try to keep in mind whenever possible that he is doing us the biggest favor ever and that we are all doing this so we can get this baby here safely. It’s a temporary situation and one that we are lucky to be in, having him here to help us that is.

By the way, I am feeling better about having another daughter. I am getting used to the idea, just like I did last year when I was also having another daughter. I have my concerns, lots of them in fact, but I am working through them. There are more posts there for sure. Thanks so much for your comments; they really helped me move into a different space about the whole thing. Not sure where I’d be without you ladies. I am grateful.

Drumroll please

The baby is perfectly healthy and even appears to be well-behaved and cooperative. My cervix looks and feels just fine.

Turns out that I lied when I said I truly just wanted a healthy baby. When the technician said, “Are you ready? It’s a girl,” I started to cry. I started to cry and I didn’t stop for about an hour. I cried all through the u/s and through the attending doctor’s quick visit and into the waiting room to see my doctor.

I cried because my heart was hoping for a boy.

I cried because being a girl has been so hard for me. Being a daughter has sucked. Being a sister has sucked. I think I would’ve liked being a daughter-in-law but my mother-in-law who I really really liked died of brain cancer almost 10 years ago.

I cried because I always thought and hoped and felt that I would hold a baby boy, my baby boy, in my arms again someday.

I cried because the last time I was to hold a baby boy of mine was in July and he was dead. My tiny baby boy seems even more dead now. My dreams of having a live baby boy are over. Over.

I cried because my dreams, hopes, wishes, feelings, hunches, intuitions, expectations were all wrong. My vision of a third child, a boy, completing our family were wrong. That vision is what helped me decide to go through this again.

I cried because I was crying. I didn’t want to be crying at my u/s unless they were tears of joy.

I cried because losing LC and tiny baby boy will never ever make sense to me now.

I cried because maybe this baby will die like LC because we’re not meant to have a second girl. But there will be no more babies for us so unless a boy is going to show up in a basket on the doorstep, it’s not going to happen.

I cried because there is more grieving to be done and I wanted to have less grief, not more.

I cried because I felt like an ungrateful asshole.

I cried because I really wanted her to say “it’s a boy” and she didn’t.

I cried because there has been so so much crying and I wanted to not cry anymore.

I am finished crying, for now, maybe for good. It needed to happen. I will be just fine. I was fine last time and I will be fine this time.



I did have the great pleasure of feeling her first unmistakable kicks tonight. Maybe she is sending me a message, “hey mom, simmer down, it’s all good.”

Thanks, tiny daughter. I’m listening, I really am.

Just hoping for a healthy baby

As my big u/s approaches, I am caring less and less about the gender. I haven't even been able to work up the angst to post about it. Truly I want good news about the baby's health and I will be satisfied. Me satisfied? Okay maybe I am overstating it a little.

Okay, I’ll take a quick shot at why I am terrified of having another daughter.

Not necessarily in order of importance:

***I was afraid to have kids for most of my life because my mom and I have a, how shall I put it, not so great relationship. We've never had a good relationship. One of my first memories of her is her pounding on my back as I ducked out the door to go to school. I think I was about 5 or 6. As she was wailing down on me from her nearly six foot height, I was screaming "I hate you." Not exactly the makings of me dreaming of having a daughter someday.

I didn't want to have kids for most of my life and up until after my wedding because I was afraid to have a daughter. I was afraid she'd tell me to go fuck myself before she turned five. Or three.

***Being a girl has been so painful and I was/am reluctant to have to watch anybody else go through it. Vicious little friends in first grade. Backstabbers from elementary through high school graduation. I left for college and I didn’t call and I didn’t write. I never go back there.

Body angst, eating disorder-type issues, insecurity, too many sexual encounters that were unsatisfying, figuring out how to really enjoy sex, selling myself short. I could go on forever. Being a girl seems much harder than being a boy.

***I met a psychic once (she was waiting to present at a conference at my husband’s work) and confided my fears of my husband dropping dead. She took a quick look at him and said, “Oh honey he’s got light all around him. Go, be happy and have babies.” I was like, “Huh? Babies? We’re not planning to have kids.”

She just looked at me and patted my arm and said “two boys and a girl honey” and she walked off. Her pronouncement has stuck with me for 10 years. Because a psychic said it or because it rang true? Who knows? I can’t tell anymore why I’ve long felt that our third child would be a boy.

***I was SHOCKED when I found out that our third child, the baby we lost at 22 weeks, was a girl. I mean shocked, as if I didn’t believe it was possible.. It took me a while to adjust. I even thought, well maybe we won’t actually have this baby and we will end up with a boy. I did adjust and was completely on board long before we lost her.

The baby that we lost this summer was a boy. That kind of fucked me up a little extra.

So here we are again. Having a boy would feel like a big, cosmic puzzle piece just clicks intro place for me. Losing LC will make more sense than it does now. Losing the next baby may never make sense but having another boy will help.

***Besides I like boy stuff. I die over little boy clothes. I’d rather build and play with trains than dress dolls. I am a tomboy.

***My daughter, oh yeah, the girl that I was afraid to have is HELL ON WHEELS!! She screamed her ass off for the first seven months of her life. Then just screamed half of the time for the next seven months. I was a wreck. She is the fiercest creature I have ever laid eyes upon. She seems to like me okay so far but she’s only two and a half.

I am thrilled to have her. I am CRAZY about her. I admire her. I am up to the challenge of growing through this experience of having a daughter. But isn’t one enough?

***Me, the mother of two teenage daughters? It has never really seemed possible. But two boys? Sure they’ll do really stupid things like drive drunk but I am not AFRAID of them. I have always been more comfortable with men. Men aren’t mean or petty or backstabbing or vicious or passive-aggressive like women are. Women are scary. Men are easy. They are often rather simple and uncomplicated.

Bottom line is I will be thrilled with a healthy baby. If it’s a girl, I won’t be as shocked as I was when LC turned out to be a girl. But I’ll be a little confused. For so long, I’ve had a FEELING that our third would be a boy. And a preference, I admit.

But I am sure that people have “feelings” all the time and that doesn’t mean those things come to pass. I just want to find out. If it’s a girl, I’ll have my little process and then go about the business of falling in love with her. If it’s a boy, then at the end of the day I’ll feel like things make a little more sense.

I don’t mean to be the ungrateful brat that my mother often said I was (nice, huh?). It’s just that this is some complicated shit.

Bottom line: I’ve been through hell to get this baby here. Whoever is coming will be welcomed with the most open of hearts. He or she is already welcome, even though I just said all of that stuff about having a girl. As I’ve said, it’s complicated.

(((Healthy baby)))

i'm here, i'm fine

I'm here. I'm fine. It was sweet of you ladies to inquire about my well-being.

i am okay. my nanny, aka completely passive-aggressive biatch from hell, quit with no notice so my free day and a half vanished. now i'm full-time with the kids and my son is still on vacation. and i'm trying to put my feet up whenever i can, not so conducive to posting or visiting. i wish we had a laptop. suddenly i am visiting preschools and having zero time to myself except in the evening when i am wrecked and need to be horizontal. here's where the laptop would come in handy. i do check in on some blogs but don't even take the time to say hello. sorry.

the doppler has been great!! every few days i check in and find a nice strong heartbeat. rocket man has a knack for finding the heartbeat so it has been nothing but reassuring.

mu big u/s was moved up to tuesday and now that i have an emergency babysitter, we are all set to ge a good look at our baby on tuesday the 9th. i could change my ticker but i won't bother.

4 sleeps until we find out if our baby is healthy and has all the proper organs. can't wait!! still dying to know about gender so i can start to fantasize and attach and imagine and get connected to this baby. knowing about gender really helps me do that. it cuts through the terror and stimulates the bonding. tuesday at 1:15. i hope i'll get to post about my gender issues and why i prefer to have another boy.